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Widerstehe doch der Sünde, BWV54

Introduction

BWV54 Widerstehe doch der Sünde is a twin-aria solo cantata for a deep-voiced alto, written possibly in the same year as Himmelskönig for the Third Sunday in Lent (Oculi), or a year later. It is scored for a five-part string ensemble with divided violas, and is based by Bach’s librettist Georg Christian Lehms on the Epistle to James: ‘Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you’. The first aria is spellbinding. Twice within the space of a year we find Bach opening a movement with a harsh dissonance, a dominant seventh chord over a tonic pedal point (the other occasion comes in the Advent cantata BWV61 Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland). It is a deliberate shock tactic to rouse his listeners to the need to ‘stand firm against all sinning, or its poison will possess you’. Was it also, one wonders, his way of announcing himself, two days after his appointment, as Concertmeister at the Weimar court? Bach creates a mood of urgent, unflinching resistance to the seductive, tenacious powers of evil. These he evokes in lyrically entwined violin lines which writhe and twist, then teeter for a whole bar in suspense before tumbling down to an apparent repose, a clear symbol of the reprieve available to those who stand firm against sin. A deadly curse (illustrated by two abrupt re-entries of the violas on the same dominant seventh) awaits those who lose the will to resist. And just in case anyone was not paying attention, he maintains the strong and stubborn chord pulsation throughout. Of the thirty-two quavers of the opening four bars only four are consonances, all the rest being dissonances, twelve of them five-note chords!

The recitative which follows strips the masks from sin, which on closer inspection turns out to be ‘but an empty shadow’. It is also a ‘sharpened sword that pierces us through body and soul’. The second aria is cast as a four-part fugue, with an insinuating chromatic theme and a long, contorted countersubject to portray the wily shackles of the devil. Did the piece really end there or have we lost a chorale somewhere along the line, if not at the very end then, perhaps, as a missing cantus firmus, a musical superscription to the fugue? It occurs to me that Bach uses precisely such a device (strophes of Paul Gerhardt’s hymn ‘Warum sollt’ ich mich denn grämen’) in his double-choir motet BWV228 Fürchte dich nicht, very likely written around this time. Both fugues begin, intriguingly, with a descending chromatic figure. More striking still is the resemblance of the counter-subject to the theme in the last movement of BWV63 Christen, ätzet diesen Tag, written for Christmas Day in Weimar in 1714. Suppose for a moment that Widerstehewas written the following year (and here, even the great Alfred Dürr sits on the fence); could it be that Bach was re-invoking his Christmas-tide appeal for grace (‘Almighty God, gaze graciously on the fervour of these humble souls!’) in the Lenten cantata, to nullify the tempting beauty of sin (‘outwardly wonderful’) which the devil has invented?

Recordings

A sublime trio of Bach solo cantatas from one of today’s leading countertenors. Such exalted repertoire demands artistry of a very special order: Iestyn Davies and Arcangelo prove more than equal to the challenge.» More

'James Bowman is on impressive form and his admirers need not hesitate here' (The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs)'After hearing the first three notes of Cantata 170 my expectations of this recording were high. I was not disappointed' (Hi-Fi News)» More

Vile sinning seems, In truth, outwardly wonderful; But one must Thereafter, with sorrow and dismay, Experience much misery. Outwardly sin is golden; But if one looks more closely, We see it is but an empty shadow, A whited sepulchre. It resembles Sodom’s apples, And those who wed themselves to sin Shall never dwell in God’s realm. Sin is like a sharpened sword, That pierces us through body and soul.

Sin’s way is subtle: At first it maintains a wondrously fair appearance, But when all is done, by sorrow and remorse, The sinner is afflicted. Though sin is gilded over, if we look further We see an empty shadow, A whited sepulchre. Whoever would side with sin, As in Sodom and Gomorrah, May not live with God. For sin is like a steel sword, To cleave the body from head to foot.